


Temptation

by osprey_archer



Category: White Christmas (1954)
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:45:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joliet remained inexplicably uncharmed. "Bob, listen, I know he's an army pal and all that, but...well." He rubbed his lower lip, then pulled a folded paper out of his vest pocket. "Bob, here. I'd like to offer you a contract."</p>
<p>Bob touched the paper with a fingernail. "Solo?"</p>
<p>"You know anyone in this town would hire you if you'd go back to your old act," said Joliet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temptation

"We only have three weeks rent left," Bob had said, "so if you're that desperate to go to a nightclub - "

"A real New York nightclub!" Phil had interjected.

" - we ought to at least go to a cheap one." 

But despite Bob's very sensible protest, somehow (Phil had rubbed his arm and looked tragic and Bob couldn't say no to that face), they ended up at the Blue Goose, wearing red vests and looking dapper.

Or Bob looked dapper. Phil's hair was so excited to be in a real live New York nightclub that it was having a party all on its own. Bob used to have to yell at him about that during inspections, but now it made him smile. Phil spun around, staring at the tables, the chandeliers, the women in their low-backed evening dresses.

Bob nudged Phil's shoulder. "Don't hang your mouth open like that or something'll fly in."

"This," said Phil, plucking a glass of champagne off a passing waiter's tray, "is the life." He sat down and took a swig, which would have been suave if there'd been a chair.

Phil blinked up at Bob, dripping champagne, infinitely wounded. "At least it makes your hair lie flat," said Bob, when he'd caught his breath from laughing.

"Excuse me," said the waiter, also infinitely wounded, and far more seriously than Phil, "you have to pay for that."

Phil looked shocked. Evidently he'd believed that in New York nightclubs wine flowed like water. "I'll pay," said Bob. "You go enjoy yourself. Preferably cheaply."

"Yes, sir!" said Phil, snapping a salute and picking himself up off the floor.

Funny thing about Phil: even as Bob was shelling out a truly horrifying sum for the stolen champagne (by the end of the evening, they would definitely be down to two weeks rent) he couldn't be angry.

"Bob Wallace?"

Bob turned. "Louis Joliet? It's good to see you!" And it was; Joliet had given Bob his big break back in the day, and maybe he could give Bob and Phil a turn at the Blue Goose now. No one else even wanted to see the two of them audition audition. 

"Good to see you, too, kid." Joliet pounded Bob's back. "Where's this Phil Davis I've heard about?"

Bob pointed him out. Phil still looked a like a drowned cat, except a lot happier and more excitable than a drowned cat had any right to be. Joliet's face congealed like cooling fat.

The first couple nightclubs Bob had tried to get them gigs in, Bob had brought Phil along. He'd hoped the producers couldn't bring themselves to turn down that face (Bob couldn't, after all). But all they'd seen was Phil bouncing around like an overeager un-housebroken puppy. _Drop the kid and come back_ , advised Louie at the Green Flamingo, and then blew a cloud of cigar smoke in Bob's face. 

Bob had never much liked Flamingo Louie. 

"Phil's a great dancer," said Bob.

"They're a dime a dozen," said Joliet. "Good dancers. How do you think the chorus lines get filled? No, anyone who's going to be your dance partner has got to have _it_ , Bob, and I just don't see..."

"Phil's got plenty of _it_ , he's brimming with _it_ ," objected Bob. "Just look at him." Phil folded a napkin into little white mouse finger puppet and stole a girl's nose. Bob stifled a grin.

Joliet remained inexplicably uncharmed. "Bob, listen, I know he's an army pal and all that, but...well." He rubbed his lower lip, then pulled a folded paper out of his vest pocket. "Bob, here. I'd like to offer you a contract."

Bob touched the paper with a fingernail. "Solo?"

"You know anyone in this town would hire you if you'd go back to your old act," said Joliet. "People want to go to a nightclub and feel like the old days are returning. It's not a good time to be changing your act, Bob."

"It's never a good time to change your act until you should have changed it three years ago, and by then it's too late," said Bob.

"It's showbiz. It's hard knock world, kid. Sign the contract." 

Bob scooted the paper half an inch away. He looked over at Phil again, his messy hair and eyes crinkled at the corners, and his arms moving loose and flexible like noodles as he told a pretty redhead some tall tale about the army.

Bob shook his head.

"You sure, Bob?"

Bob wasn't sure he could speak, so he shook his head again.

Joliet touched his shoulder, lightly. "Your drinks are on the house tonight, kid," he said. "Come talk to me when you see sense."

***

It was late, late, late when Bob got back to the cheap room he shared with Phil. He sat on his bed in his undershirt digging at a crack in the dingy linoleum with his big toe. Mice squeaked in the walls. Two more weeks before they ran out of rent even for this ugly place.

He'd drunk just enough that he couldn't hold that thought very long. Poking at the linoleum took too much attention.

He had two inches of the linoleum free from the concrete floor when Phil burst in, trailing the smell of rain and cigars and champagne. "New York is great!" he cried, practically dancing as he hung up his coat. "Champagne! Singing! Dancing! And did you see some of those dames, Bob?" Phil whistled, and removed his tie with a snap. "Now that's what I call sex appeal."

A cockroach skittered across the floor. Bob draw his feet up onto the bed. 

"We coulda been better than those boys on stage, too," said Phil, tossing his suit coat onto his bed and undoing his vest buttons fast as if he'd been doing two minute costume changes all his life. Bob watched out of the corner of his eye. "Did you notice, the one on the left keeping tripping over his own feet?"

'No."

"That's right, you were sitting in the corner getting friendly with the champagne." Phil untucked his shirt and frowned. "What was that all about? With all those pretty girls there..."

"Pretty superficial girls," said Bob.

"What's wrong with being superficial?" Phil asked. 

"I get more than enough of it from you already."

"I'm hurt," Phil announced. "I'm wounded. You know I've got your best interests at heart, don't you, Bob? After all..."

"If you even look at your arm-" Bob said.

Phil frowned and leaned on Bob's shoulder. "I'm hurt," he said again. "Why would I try to pull a cheap stunt like that? It's just that when you've saved a guy's life..."

"You're going to milk that cow till she keels over and dies, aren't you?"

"Don't you trust me?"

Bob hardened his heart against the plaintive tone. It was tough, especially with Phil breathing on his ear. "Not farther than I can throw you."

"Good thing I'm such a reasonably sized guy, then," said Phil. He jumped up suddenly, spinning on the linoleum. "Did I tell you, I've got this great new angle. Let's go to the Mahogany Club tomor-"

"Mahogany?" bleated Bob. "Do you have any idea how much that costs?"

"Well, no," said Phil. "He didn't mention we'd have to pay admission to get backstage."

"It's nearly ten dollars cover charge!"

"He's paying us a hundred, so that should just about cover it."

"We can barely afford this room as it is! I'm putting my foot down, for once in my life I'm going to say no to you no matter how much you bat your eyelashes - wait. You got us a job?"

Phil nodded, his grin nearly splitting his face in half.

"You got us a job?"

"At the Mahogany Club," said Phil, and pirouetted badly.

Bob jumped up and kissed him right on his goofy grin, bending him back over the way they'd kissed the girls on V-E day. Phil's hat fell right off, and when Bob let him go Phil fell down after it, laughing and blushing and rubbing his lips. "Told you the Blue Goose was a good idea," he said.

It wasn't something they did again (except maybe when they were really drunk), or ever mentioned, but Bob thought of it sometimes when their luck was down and it always made him smile.


End file.
